Selma Still Under Economic Repression after 50 Years of Bloody Sunday Protest

Almost 100,000 people trooped into Selma this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the historical attack on voting rights. 50 years ago, protesters were marching to the state capital of Montgomery and, because of confrontational police actions, the march became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’.

The march was indeed historic and hopes were high, as the eyes of the nation were on the small community. It was thought that the commemoration would galvanize action against the economic injustice that is endemic even today, to give the civil rights movement meaning once more.

But 50 years down the line, nothing much has changed. Apart from the passage of the Voting Rights Act on the year of the protest, for black American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, we cannot point to any concrete reforms which actively protect the welfare of the people of Selma.

With more than 36% residents and 60% of children living in poverty, the county is the poorest in the state of Alabama, making it one of the poorest in US. The unemployment rate is nearly twice the national average.

A journalist from Think Progress who participated in this year’s celebration described the town in this way: “on the outskirts of town, clusters of mobile homes and crumbling shotgun houses sit along unpaved roads. The majority of downtown businesses near the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge save for several fast food chains and payday lenders stand vacant, their windows boarded up or broken. Most of the city’s public housing projects, built in the early 1950s, are in serious need of repair’’.

Truly, Martin Luther King Jnr was right to have preached about building the anti-poverty movement that he had led in the struggle against economic and social repression against black communities.

King called for an economic revolution that would give all the nation’s poor a guaranteed income, nationalize private industries and bring about a “Marshall Plan” for America’s urban poor. At the celebration this year, the speech King had made has started resurrecting a new spirit to struggle onward for the economic independence of the people of Selma and even all poor communities in the US.

Leader of the Moral Mondays movement- Reverend Dr. William Barber explained that “we have to put the poor back on the agenda and organize not for poor people but with them. There is no way to talk about civil rights without talking about economic rights. They are all tied together. So here in the South, the new civil rights movement has to take on poverty, which is intertwined with education and health care.”

Another personality leading this new movement on the local level in Selma-Latasha Irby admitted to Think Progress that employment opportunities in Selma are very low, allowing companies to exploit their workers. Irby works for Renosol- a local factory that makes foam seats for Hyundai cars.

“There are such low wages, and we can’t make ends meet one week to the next, and jobs aren’t plentiful in Selma, so you can’t just walk off this job and go to another. We have to stick around and try to deal with what the company is doing. We tried to start a union but they came in and scared everyone, telling them a bunch of lies, like if we formed a union, our customers wouldn’t accept our cars. Change has to be made. The only way we’re going to make things better is if we have a voice in our workplace on issues that concern us directly’’, she said.

To substantiate Irby’s claims, in 2014, Renosol was cited by federal inspectors for multiple serious violations; including failing to provide workers with appropriate protective equipment and safety training, and not documenting work-related illnesses. The federal report further disclosed that Workers at the plant have suffered from sinus infections, chronic coughs, bronchitis and asthma.

Irby also argued that raising worker wages would help the whole town’s economy as workers with more money in their pockets would then spend that money in town, boosting local businesses and creating jobs.

“Businesses don’t want to come here. Even in the Selma Mall, stores are leaving,” she said. “I want to keep my money in the community, but there’s nothing here’’, she added.

The atmosphere in Selma is that of economic freedom; to get better paying jobs to be able to invest and raise their own living standards. As President Obama’s term in office ends in 2016, all eyes are on him to see what he will be able to do (now that he truly has nothing to lose) for his fellow blacks who have suffered subjugation for so long.

Source: thinkprogress.org